Top Online Resources for Medical Students

As medical students we are constantly bombarded by information at university. We are then expected to go home revise and further extend our knowledge. One strategy towards our self directed learning is to whip out our textbooks and delve into the lines and line of text and static imagery. Online resources are the alternative, they provide interactive and dynamic content and allow us to access information in a much greater variety of ways. The problems of information overload then really start to begin.

Using a selection of quality and informative online resources we can reduce this load, and I hope too today share some of the resources I and others find particularly valuable in our education toolkit. Please note the list of resources are all freely available, however some more comprehensive options do exist that require payment/subscription. I recommending checking what online resources are provided by your Medical School.

Top 5 Search Engines
Search Engines play an important role in accessing information, but each come with their own strengths and weaknesses. While Google, Bing & Yahoo are fine for general search, they do not always return information that is relevant to the health profession. Consequently, utilising health specific search engines yield better results. These are the Top 5 Search for Health Professionals according toLifeinthefastLane.com. For a more comprehensive overview of each click here.

Alternative

Scirus is the Google for scientific information, currently covering over 480 million science-related Web pages. It’s is not only for medicine but covers a large portion of the science field. Searches can be broken down into Journal sources, preferred web (patent offices, universities, MD Consult and so on) and other web. You can integrate Scirus into your browser by either their Search Toolbar orFirefox extension.

Social Media Resources

Medpediais best described as a sibling of Wikipedia. A sibling that just happens to know a bit more about medicine and provides the correct information. Medical professionals collaborate to provide accurate information , however only Medical Doctors or researchers with a Ph.D in a biomedical field can edit. This allows everyone to contribute, but ensures the validity of the information.
The feature that is particularly useful for medical students and professionals is that for each entry there is an option for the ‘plain english’ and clinical version. Aside from the wiki, there are also various groups and communities in which you can interact.

Webicinais an aggregator of medical resources, including the best web 2.0 resources. This includes blogs, community sites, podcasts or search engines, among others, that focus on one specific issue. (e.g. cardiology).

Meducation is a community site for Doctors and medical students. At this it is primarily UK-based but contains a wide spectrum of useful medical resources (videos, powerpoints, notes and so on) and practice exam questions. You join by a simple registration process or you can connect via your Facebook account.

Doc2doc is another online community run by the BMJ that allows you to discuss aspects of medicine and puzzling cases. Doc2doc is more suitable for later level medical students as opposed to Meducation.

StudentDoctorNetwork (SDN) is both a community and information site. It covers a wide range of the medical field from audiology through to veterinary. In addition, it has a number of useful tips about coping with student life and career development.

PagingDr is an Aussie medical community. While it was more of a pre-med community initially, as more of those members have passed through medical education the variety of members has increased (premeds, medical students, interns, and doctors). For a medical student, this community is more about discussing medical student life rather than in-depth case analysis and so on. So for example if you’re worried about getting an intern place or affording medical school, this a good place to look.

Medical ResourcesGeneral

Medical Dictionary – Not sure what a word means? Check out online medical dictionary for a concise answer.

Medical Mnemonics – Struggle to remember the cranial nerves or want an alternative way of learning. Medical mnemonics is a catalogue of mnemonic tools submitted by students and professionals for remembering components of medicine (from Anatomy through to Urology)

Medscape is free resource for students and physicians and provides medical journal articles, drug references news and much more. A useful feature is to sign-up to their MedscapeCME Case Studies. Each week they will send you an email with a Case study to test and challenge your current medical knowledge. An iphone app is also available.

Surgical Exam – An online resource for those interested in surgery. Has cases, MCQs, an endoscopy library and much more.

The AO Surgery Reference is a huge online repository of surgical knowledge, consisting of more than 7’000 pages. It overviews surgical procedures, surgical decision making, and has an abundance of images and videos.

Embryology

Human Embryology – A comprehensive resource developed by a collaboration between a number of Swiss Universities. Would highly recommend.

UNSW Embryology – A resource by Dr Mark Hill which contains animations, images, text and links to help you understand how the body develops.

Anaesthesia MCQ – An interactive resource of tutorials, a forum, exam questions and links pertaining to anaesthesia. Useful for understanding of pharmacology, acid-base system and for GAMSAT or MCAT type questions.